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Muslims and the New Information and Communication Technologies pp 113–126Cite as

The Qur’ān on the Internet: Implications and Future Possibilities

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Part of the book series: Muslims in Global Societies Series ((MGSS,volume 7))

Abstract

The Qurʾān prominently proclaims its status as a “book”, kitāb, throughout the text and the Muslim definition of the scriptural codex, muṣḥaf, as that which is “between two covers” is a firm legal and theological doctrine. Of course, that textual sense of the Qurʾān is always balanced by a strong sense of the orality of the scripture and its ultimate definition as the “speech” of God. That is so not only in discussions of the transmission of the text but also in daily piety. Still, it remains the case that the Qurʾān’s textuality stands as a prominent trait. Thus, the transition of the text to a digital format and the increasing reliance on electronic distribution that we are witnessing in the current generation are significant events for Muslims in many ways.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    One source of documentation is Lohlker 2004, although that is now outdated.

  2. 2.

    On the notion of “digital humanities” see, for example, Schreibman et al. 2004.

  3. 3.

    Also see some of my early reviews of attempts to Arabize personal computing: Rippin 1990a, b, 1991.

  4. 4.

    For some traditional legal opinions on selling copies of the Qur’ān see the fourteenth century work Nawawī 2003: 117–118.

  5. 5.

    I made reference in my article to the errors in many of the available texts at the time which, given their character, I speculated were due to OCR rendering of the texts. This thought was stimulated by the association of one of the major and early producers of the texts – Sahkr/Harf technologies – also being behind the development of Arabic OCR in 1993. Milo 2008 seems to consider Arabic OCR something of an elusive development but, to me, his peculiar adherence to a notion of “authentic Arabic” that needs to be represented as typography (and not through a simple approach to script) colours his views.

  6. 6.

    For a recent overview see Bunt 2010.

  7. 7.

    For a general overview, see Sadan 1986.

  8. 8.

    Many online fatwā sites address issues related to purity in handling the Qur’ān and have discussed the various implications that arise, starting with issues, for example, of whether listening to a digital recitation of the Qur’ān in the bathroom is permissible. See, for example, the fatwās at http://qurancomplex.com/default.asp?l=eng under Qur’ān Fatwas>Fatwas by Subject>General manners regarding the Holy Qur’ān. Accessed February 8, 2013. For further discussion of some of these issues and the impact on religious scholars, see Larsson 2011: 167–192.

  9. 9.

    This is conveyed well by the chapters in Suleman 2007. Also see the observations in Déroche 2009 concerning the way ancient manuscripts of the Qur’ān underwent a continual process of change as they were adapted to contemporary standards of spelling and orthography.

  10. 10.

    This text was accessed February 8, 2013. It is notable that this text was updated recently to put the critique in the past tense; the developers now appear to feel that the problems have been overcome due to their efforts.

  11. 11.

    A handwritten text published in Cairo by Sharkat al-Shamarlī.

  12. 12.

    See, for example, the survey of the Qur’ān in (and as) art in Blair 2007.

  13. 13.

    This is certainly apparent with some mobile application in which the Arabic text of the Qur’ān can be extremely small.

  14. 14.

    This point would be worthy of a full research project. In Turkey, for example, the emergence of translations has been a very public act by being published in newspapers during Ramadan in the 1980s, for example.

  15. 15.

    It is worthy of note that the move of recitation to recorded media parallels the use of moveable type in the printing of the Qur’an. For some details, see Albin 2004.

  16. 16.

    See, e.g., the references to this in Günther 2005; a vivid modern Arab expression is found in Husayn 1970.

  17. 17.

    Others have commented on the way in which religious sermons and Qur’ān recitations engage with audiences in both active and passive ways; see Hirshkind 2006: 67–104; Nelson 1985: 153–187.

  18. 18.

    See the considerations in Smith 2005: “In the case of humanities knowledge production, which has for the last five hundred years depended on printed books to transmit the fruits of intellectual labor, crucial parts of the process of knowledge building and bookmaking have been hidden from public view.” … “Democratizing access to primary materials is the most obvious value that multimedia research archives bring to humanities education.”… “Though all of this viewing is of digital surrogates, such access is a big deal. Readers can make their own judgments about worth and literary legacy. Art viewers can avail themselves of sustained periods of study not possible when the works of art are received via a slide show during class time. Twenty-first-century teachers would be well served to take advantage of these resources, critiquing their limitations as well as their possibilities, just as they would for any bookbound resource.”… “The humanities are vital to the educational system Thomas Jefferson saw as necessary for achieving democracy. In fact, the ‘pursuit of happiness,’ one of the inalienable rights of people enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, depends on knowledge.”

  19. 19.

    This is a point made in Mandaville 1999, although he seems to present this mainly in economic terms (“capturing a larger share of the market for digital Islam”).

  20. 20.

    Also see the comments in McGann 2009.

  21. 21.

    The impact of translating a select group of tafsīrs, as has happened over the past decade, could also have a significant impact on this formation of a “canon” of works.

  22. 22.

    For a treatment of this theme in general see Vandendorpe 2009.

  23. 23.

    See e.g., Peter 2006: 105–116. This is a clear theme of the books of Oliver Roy, e.g., Roy 2004: especially chapter 4, “The triumph of the religious self”. The emphasis of Tariq Ramadan on individualism is also notable.

  24. 24.

    At the same time I do not wish to minimize the number of knowledgeable people or claim that understanding of this material solely resides with the traditionally trained scholars (and academic specialists). For a useful discussion of the way texts are used in online argumentation and discussion see Becker 2009: “Salafi activists taking part in an online forum are not expected to have a huge corpus of Islamic knowledge learned or memorized-in contrast to established religious scholars. However, they establish their authority by knowing where to access this knowledge when needed. The ulama’ have not become superfluous. To the contrary, they are still of great importance for Salafi activists as hadith scholars. However, they have lost their role as sole mediators between the sources and the believer since Salafi activists do not only go back to the now digitized sources with the help of online forums. They have also appropriated ‘Islamic argumentation’ from the monopoly of the religious scholars.” Also see Becker 2011; Mandaville 1999, 2007; Turner 2007.

  25. 25.

    See http://corpus.quran.com/ontology.jsp

  26. 26.

    In a recent discussion with a translator of one work of tafsīr that appears online as well as in printed form, it was pointed out that the online version, because it is devoid of notes and other textual annotations, does not actually make sense when compared to the Arabic text available on the same site because the process of translation required considerable work on the source text itself (including consulting additional manuscripts). Only the printed work is truly meaningful. It is not as though the technology does not exist that would facilitate the incorporation of linked annotations.

  27. 27.

    Some of these themes of digital humanities are developed in Juoal 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Victoria, Clearihue Building Room B245, 3800 Finnerty Rd., Victoria, V8W 3P4, BC, Canada

    Andrew Rippin

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  1. Faculty of Theology, Section for Biblical Exegesis, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Thomas Hoffmann

  2. Department of Literature, History of Ide, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden

    Göran Larsson

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Rippin, A. (2013). The Qur’ān on the Internet: Implications and Future Possibilities. In: Hoffmann, T., Larsson, G. (eds) Muslims and the New Information and Communication Technologies. Muslims in Global Societies Series, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7247-2_7

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